Dell complaints

[basketcase]

I jjust got my laptop back from my ex wife, but she changed the password and and made herself the administrator and now I can't get into it. Is there a way around that, will a program like WipeDrive that runs from the boot menu and wipe the drive slove my problem?

[Rocke_T_Sinetist]

A little lingering hostility?

Depends how knowledgeably devious she is. There are freeware WXP password crackers. There are also 'levels' of passwording in WXP that defy them. Worth a try, unless you have nothing to lose on the drive and wanted to reinstall the OS anyway.

Can you GET to the boot menu? That is, she didn't set the BIOS password, did she? If she did, dump a soda on it and give it back to her for Xmas. Wait--you didn't pour it yet did you?--if YOUR name is on the account, after making you jump through some identification hoops Dell 'might' tell you how to reset it. (As much as they 'might' do anything, or nothing.) There is a universal password for each laptop line but they're closely guarded.

If you're not locked out of the machine itself (just the OS), wiping it and starting over should work.
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Rocke T Sinetist
as in, 'it doesn't take a...'

[paul_dellcc]

Rocke's suggestions are good.

I guess asking to your ex wife is not an option, right

If you got divorced or you are in the process, you can ask the Judge to make her give you the password...
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I see DELL people!!

If we don't remember our past, we can't understand our present and we can put in danger our future...

[delltech_jeremy]

If you have Windows XP Hoe Edition, you have a backdoor to be able to change the password:

Restart your computer
Tap the F8 button at the Dell screen and go to 'Safe Mode'
Log in to the new 'ADMINISTRATOR' account
Go to your 'User Accounts' under 'Control Panel'
Click on your user name, and then change your password

Now this works only with home edition, if it's pro, then you're gonna have to format/reload unless you try some password hacking programs.

Good luck!
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Caller>Yes, I was calling to check what kind of materials your mouse pads are made of.
Me>Uhh... uhh... hold on... (hold button)
[Ten minutes later...]
Me>I'm sorry, but I have no idea.

[burning_arc]

thats wrong, the administrator account does become visible with the pro edition as well as corp. Aswell the administrator is not some new account, its just hidden on the normal gui boot menu, if u go into the win2k style login, u could type in administrator and login from there without having to go into safemode. I hope you remember the password though you made to the administrator account when you installed windows.

If you cant, and assuming your boot pattern attempts to boot off of floppy or cd or external drive before harddrive, download ntpassword from http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/ and use that to alter the SAM file and edit the password. If your system attempts to boot from harddrive 1st and she passeworded your bios, your going to have to reset your bios. pull out the bios battery and wait a while, the bios should be reset, reassemble the laptop and now alter the boot sequence to allow booting from cd or floopy or external device depending on your model. or at this point, you could simply reinstall windows.

[sickofdell]